A new wave of student activism is spreading across college campuses, say scholars of the 1960s student movement. They find that today's students, though stigmatized as selfish, are finding new ways to fight prejudice and economic injustice.

These veterans of radical politics compare the current surge in interest to that of the early 1960s, but they say students are now more sober and pessimistic than their predecessors. They want to change their campuses, not the world; they try to change specific attitudes, not human nature itself.

"Compared to four or five years ago, there is a stirring among students," says James E. Miller, a lecturer in Social Studies and author of Democracy Is In The Streets; From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, one of the first books in the recent wave of studies on the 1960s. "Students today are looking for alternatives in a way which I have not seen in a while," he says.

"There is at least an undertone of things warming up," agrees Todd Gitlin '63, author of The '60s: Days of Hope, Days of Rage, and an associate professor of sociology at UC/Berkeley.

"The interest in student activism picked up with the collapse of Reaganistic policies," says Miller. He sees a similarity between the state of the country today, as Reagan's presidency nears its end, and the political climate of the early 1960s, when a comparatively liberal Democratic government replaced McCarthyism and the Eisenhower administration.

"If a Democrat is elected president, we could possibly be in a situation similar to the early 1960s," says Gitlin.

But many professors warn that a lack of optimism among students today prevents them from devoting themselves to political change in the same way that students in the 1960s did.

"There is an irony that today more kids are doing stuff in the U.S. than in 1960, but it does not add up to the same kind of mood," says Miller.

"The movement today lacks a single, emotional force that would ignite the feelings of larger numbers of students. Activists today have not found the language that speaks to the larger student body," says Gitlin. "They have not found a way of expressing their concerns that captures the sensibility of those outside the movement."

Robert Flacks, professor of sociology at UC/Santa Barbara, says he has noticed a definite increase in activism among his students in the last few years. But he says these new activists have very negative views of the world.

"The activists I am talking about are pessimistic," he says. "They see a world of crisis and horror. I see a lot of promising things going on, but in them I see almost despair," he says.

The optimism of the 1960s grew out of an affluent stable economy, in which students had the economic freedom to devote themselves to politics, says Miller.

"The early 1960s followed the most sustained period of affluence and growth in American history. My generation was heir to that affluence, and everybody thought that the world was America's oyster. With that kind of economy, almost anything seemed possible," says Miller.

"Kids today are real concerned with what they are going to do, with getting a job. It is harder to be carefree and experiment," says Miller.

The economic pressures on students today do not allow them the time to devote themselves to political issues, say many professors.